


Just Sorry That It Happened

by ArgyleMN



Series: Bryce Lahela/Cassie Vanderfield - Canon Universe One Shots [6]
Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgyleMN/pseuds/ArgyleMN
Summary: Bryce is the one Cassie turns to when her day takes an unexpected turn for the worse. Set around Chapter 15 of Open Heart book 1.
Relationships: Bryce Lahela/Main Character (Open Heart)
Series: Bryce Lahela/Cassie Vanderfield - Canon Universe One Shots [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768597
Comments: 14
Kudos: 10





	Just Sorry That It Happened

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who never chose any interaction that implied romantic or sexual interest in Ramsey, it was pretty uncomfortable watching him pin MC to the counter and come onto her, only for her to never act like anything like that happened going forward. In reality, I think it would be pretty devastating to discover someone you viewed as a mentor might have had ulterior motives for their interactions with you. This fic essentially explores that situation in more depth.

Bryce shoved open the door to his apartment, arms full of groceries. He hadn’t really planned on running errands today, but since he switched weekends with Keegan to have this one off, that meant he was going to be working the next 26 days straight. So after they all left the country club, he decided he better stock up before he got too busy to buy soap or coffee.

Making the decision to switch to have this weekend off had been an easy one, even if it did mean almost a month of work without a day off. But with everything Cassie was going through, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Even though she wasn’t his girlfriend, no matter how much the other surgical interns teased him that she was, he did care about her. A lot. He had just never put that much stock in labels. He and Molly had been in an “official” relationship for years when that all fell apart dramatically, after all. So, in the end, Bryce figured it was more important to _show_ someone they were important to him, rather than putting a title on a relationship. So yeah, of course he was gonna take this weekend off to spend time with Cassie.

The whole situation with Mrs. Martinez was just so effed up. He knew that Emery had to take action, that once she heard that Cassie stole that drug sample, she couldn’t just let it slide. But at the same time, he knew Cassie, and she had just been trying to honor Mrs. Martinez’s wishes. Her heart had been in the right place. The fact that she was the only one being punished, when he and Jackie and Elijah and Sienna had been a part of it all, also left him feeling guilty. But at this point, all he could really do was be there for her.

As Bryce unloaded the bags onto his kitchen counter, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He almost sent the call to voicemail reflexively. His parents were really the only ones who called instead of texting, but he glanced down and was surprised to see her name flash across the screen. He quickly swiped to answer her call.

“Hey, how did it go with Ramsey?”

There was a long pause before she spoke, “Are you home?”

“Yeah, why?”

Another pause, punctuated by a small sniffle. “Can I come over?”

“Of course. Cassie, is everything okay?”

More silence. “I’m about 15 minutes away.”

“Okay, see you soon.”

The fifteen minutes felt like hours. Bryce didn’t do well with waiting. Patience might be a virtue, but he’d always preferred action. Cassie was clearly upset about something. When she’d left the country club, she’d seemed hopeful, so things must have gone poorly with her chat with Ramsey. But even if Ramsey had told her he wouldn’t testify on her behalf, that didn’t exactly explain how shaken and off she’d sounded on the phone. Something was very wrong here, but she hadn’t exactly given him any clues.

Finally, the call box on the wall buzzed. He pressed the button to unlock the front door, and a few moments later, he heard a gentle knock on his door. He walked over quickly, throwing open the door to see Cassie standing there, looking even paler than usual.

“Cassie, what happened? Are you okay?”

She nodded, stepping past him into his apartment. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just…” She trailed off, not seeming to know what to say next. After a few seconds she shook her head, finally turning towards him. “Can I get a glass of water?”

Bryce nodded, pouring her a glass of water before he joined her on his couch. She’d taken a seat there, chewing on her thumbnail and bouncing her leg up and down. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, passing her the water.

She nodded, but didn’t start talking, instead just holding the glass with both of her hands. Bryce wanted to touch her. Hold her hand or put an arm around her, but he didn’t want to spook her. He got the sense that he was going to have to be patient. It probably was less than a minute, but the silence stretched on for what felt like ages before Cassie finally spoke.

“So, I went to Ramsey’s apartment.”

Bryce nodded. He knew that much at least.

“Well, he was a mess. And he was drunk.”

Bryce cringed. As surly and curt as Ramsey was at work, he could only imagine how bad he would have been without the confines of professionalism and with his inhibitions lowered. “I’m so sorry, that probably wasn’t pretty. You have to know, whatever he said about you, it isn’t true.”

She shook her head, “It’s not that. We got into it a little bit, and I don’t know, I guess things got a little heated. Next thing I knew, he…”

She trailed off, but Bryce swallowed roughly. There was really only one way that sentence ended, the only question was to what degree. “Cassie, what did he do?”

She stared into the glass of water as she continued her story. “Not too much. He kind of had me trapped against his kitchen island. Then he came onto me.”

“Cassie…”

“He said since we both aren’t working at Edenbrook, we could finally have sex.”

“Shit. What an asshole. Are you okay?”

She shrugged. “I mean, I was able to get out of there pretty quickly. He’s not testifying at my hearing, in case that wasn’t clear.” She drank half of her glass of water before she continued. “He said he wasn’t my mentor, that I was just another intern. I guess he just saw me as a piece of ass.”

“Come on, you know that’s not true. He trusted you to help with Banerji. He must trust your medical judgement.” Bryce couldn’t believe he was defending Ramsey here. I mean, he was an attending who just drunkenly hit on an intern, and pretty aggressively by the sounds of it. Not to mention the intern in question was the woman he was pretty sure he was starting to fall for. But he couldn’t stand to hear her so hopeless-sounding, like her entire worldview was destroyed.

“I should have listened when you told me Ramsey was just interested in me personally. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

Her head landed on his shoulder, so Bryce wrapped his arm around her back, trying to comfort her. Ramsey being an asshole was the last thing she needed right now, with everything else going on with Mrs. Martinez and her upcoming hearing. “I’m so sorry, Cassie. He’s a dick. You know that you are an awesome doctor, right? Just because he’s a piece of shit doesn’t mean that others haven’t seen how smart and talented you are.”

“I don’t know, Bryce. He was the one attending who really believed in me. I thought I could follow his footsteps, run a diagnostics department someday. I thought he saw himself in me, but now I know he just, well… saw himself _in_ me, I guess.”

Bryce chuckled, pleased that Cassie was at least able to crack a joke about the whole, messed-up situation. 

“Hey, _First Aid_ does list humor as one of the four healthy coping mechanisms,” she quipped.

“Is that all you remember from Step One?”

“More or less. Are you telling me you remember more?”

“Of course. I’ll have you know I-”

“Never mind, I don’t want to know that you scored a 265 or whatever you got. Announcing your score will only make you even more insufferable.”

“Oh, come on. You seem to tolerate my presence well enough. I’m not _that_ bad, am I?”

She pulled back from him slightly, turning to stare into his eyes. “No,” she said, a small smile dancing across her face, “You aren’t bad at all.”

The moment was tense and expectant. Bryce wanted to kiss her, but it felt like the wrong thing to do after everything she’d been through that night. Instead he pulled her into a loose hug, not wanting her to feel trapped. She tugged him in closer though, which he took as a good sign. Almost instantly though, she jumped back.

“Shit, Cassie. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, not after he-”

“No, it’s not that. You’ve been great. I just spilled water all over myself.” She gestured down across her body, the now empty glass of water in her other hand. Sure enough, a giant wet patch covered her lap.

“Do you want something to change into?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, “Do you have a lot of women’s clothing around here, Lahela?”

“I’ll have you know I look _excellent_ in skinny jeans. But no, I was thinking more a t-shirt and some sweatpants.”

“I might look a little funny catching the T wearing your clothing.”

“Just stay here tonight.”

“Bryce, you’ll have to leave at like 5 am.”

“4:30 actually. Don’t worry about it, I’ll just leave you my keys, and you can lock up when you go. I’ll just swing by your place after work to grab them.”

She squinted at him slightly, “You trust me alone in your place?”

He shrugged, “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I?”

She seemed to mull over his words, his suggestion, but she made no move to go change into something more comfortable. Bryce wanted her to stay. He didn’t want her to go home where she would undoubtedly head straight to her bedroom and the events of tonight would sit with her, causing all sorts of doubts and fears to surface. And he didn’t want to give her roommates a heads up, because at the end of the day this wasn’t his story to tell. He wanted her here with him, where he could cheer her up and reassure her that Ramsey being a douchebag didn’t mean anything about her skills as a doctor.

“Come on, Cassie. Get comfortable and then we can watch _House_ and make fun of all the medical errors.”

She thought about his offer for just a few more moments before she smiled as she stood up from the couch.

“Which drawer?”

“Second from the top.”

A few minutes later, she emerged from his bedroom wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that she’d rolled over several times at the waist. She looked truly relaxed for the first time in days. Climbing up next to him on the couch, she cuddled up alongside him as he opened up Amazon Prime and flipped over to _House_. 

“Alright, let’s find the episode where it actually _is_ lupus.”

She laughed as the episode started to play, a magician performing some trick in the cold open. They both shifted to get more comfortable, and by halfway through the episode, Bryce felt his eyes starting to get heavy. Cassie was clearly getting tired, too, as he felt her head getting heavy on his chest.

“Thank you, Bryce” she mumbled, letting out a yawn at the end of her sentence.

“No problem, Cassie. I’m just sorry you have to go through this at all.”

But there was no response other than a faint snore. Bryce smiled, glad he had been able to provide any sort of comfort to her tonight, at least enough to help her get some sleep.


End file.
